


Magic War: Blood and Iron

by Master_of_the_Boot1



Category: Gravity Falls, Steven Universe (Cartoon), Warhammer Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-03 11:34:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11531376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Master_of_the_Boot1/pseuds/Master_of_the_Boot1
Summary: In an age when the magic and non-magic worlds collide, ordinary lives are battered and smashed. This is a world torn apart by the bloodthirsty, put to the torch by the power hungry and ruled by the insane.In a world of warfare, rape and murder, Lars Bariga will have to fight not just for his life but for his very sanity.





	1. Dark is the Night

**Author's Note:**

> Originally created by a friend on Deviantart, I just chose to play in the world he created. http://timeboy08.deviantart.com/ 
> 
> My friend created a mass crossover world where Magical forces were hounded and persecuted by the non-magical world led by Hugo Strange and his Arkham Organization. My story will be much more focused and look at a smaller, more personal corner of the magic world. 
> 
> Read and enjoy.

His name was Lars Bariga. Once upon a time he worked at a doughnut shop and was a human. Now he woke up to a world of fire, death and blood.

 

Lars woke with a cough and shoved a steel I-beam off of his chest. “Oh, holy shit!” he cried out, looking every which way; his pink skin shining in the firelight. “Pacifica! Pacifica! Oh fuck, please don’t be dead!”

 

“Lars!” cried out the young girl who once upon a time had the money to look pretty. The young girl gripped a gun like she’d used it before and dropped her machete to help Lars clear the rubble off of him. Crying out as nails and shards of glass tore from his flesh, Lars knew that such wounds would heal in time.

 

“Move it, Lars,” cried Pacifica, “The Dark Elves have hit Beach City and the federal government is sending Armoured Tiger Divisions.”

 

Lars cried out as he felt up his worn and cracked wooden ear plugs, satisfied that they’d live to fight another day. “Oh man, fucking elves. I wish I hadn’t left Homeworld.”

 

“Self pity, later,” said Pacifica. “I got a hit on my secure email, our contact is going to meet us at the Seabrook Floodgate. They’ll take us to Dipper and Mabel from there.”

 

Lars nodded before reaching his hands into the shattered masonry and withdrawing a tattered gym bag. “Let’s get going then.”

 

The duo ran out of the burning wreckage of a sleazy hotel where the deceased owner didn’t ask question or remember guest’s names. Like the rest of the city it was burning and the citizens shrieked to the heavens for any god that would save them.

 

Running down the I-10 Service Road, Lars and Pacifica spied the Black Ark of the Dark Elves. The vast floating fortress was a waking nightmare of blackstone spires, blackwood masts and innumerable weapons installations opening fire on Beach City.

 

Catapults delivered payloads of Greek Fire that could not be put out with water or any non magical means. Ballistas launched bolts that split into hundreds of needle thin arrows that massacred the crowds of densely packed fleeing humans. From the waterline of the Black Ark, iron grates opened and allowed mutated, rabid sea monsters to overturn boats, destroy buoys and nautical markers and crawl on the land to serve their masters reign of terror.

 

“Watch out!” Lars cried, grabbing Pacifica and pulling back on her tattered trench coat. From out of the sky, an army helicopter fell in a burning spiral. The olive green army machine struck the side of an apartment complex and detonated with bone rattling force. Overhead, a zombie dragon filled with superfluous bullet holes soared; crowing triumphantly over the mortal flying machine.

 

They’d hardly taken in the sight when a juvenile kraken snatched the burning chopper with its tentacles and dragged it into the sea. Running through a never ending nightmare, they only saw what Dante did upon stepping through the gates of the inferno.

 

People cut to pieces in the streets where they stood. Piles of burning corpses, most of them thrown into the fire while they were still alive. Manticores grabbing cages packed with captive humans and air lifting them to the Black Ark’s slave holds.

 

Those were the dual purposes of the Druchii, or Dark Elves; cause terror and gather slaves. From the looks of things they were monstrously successful.

 

Close to their destination, or at least closer than they were when the bombardment started; Lars and Pacifica spied the last of the Police and National Guard making their final stand. The cops and weekend warriors hid behind makeshift barricades, cradles automatic weapons and tried to make peace with their makers.

 

The pair stopped as a hailstorm of crossbow bolts cut through the night. Lars and Pacifica threw themselves to the glass covered ground. Overhead, bolts punched through police riot shields and buried themselves in solid concrete. Men who caught even a glancing hit of the dark shard projectiles fell screaming with fatal and satanically agonizing poison damage.

 

The Dark Elf mercenaries made their way up the street like columns of metal, razor and hate. Sturdy, lightweight shields blocked gunfire thanks to protective wards. Spiked, pitch black armour took further bullets and strikes that their shields failed to stop. Behind the line of shield and pike bearers, the fearsome Dark Shard warriors fired automatic crossbows at the police; their glowing red eyes shining with psychosexual delight.

 

Then from out of the darkness and smoke, came figures lithe, sexy and filled with the hunger for murder. Dressed like scanty whores, the Witch Elves of Khaine made up for their lack of armour with impossible speed and the favour of their patron god.

 

Sinuous, faster than the human eye and armed with poison coated daggers and meat hooks, the melee based Dark elves began to cut into the human defenders with rage that was beyond rage. The Bloody Handed God, Khala Mensa Khaine would be pleased. 

 

Blood, guts and bone fragments sprayed a bomb going off in a hamburger factory. The Witch Elf cut up men as effectively as a wood chipper.

 

An exploding napalm shell from a catapult landed in the street nearby and the fireball darkened everything before blanketing the area in suffocating CO2 mist. Pacifica began to wretch and cough in the heavier than air gas, though Lars was unaffected.

 

Benefits of being a pink zombie, he reasoned; picking up his travel companion and hoisting her over the dense, suffocating cloud. Sprinting through gunfire and crossbow bolts, Lars took them to a street that only slightly looked like hell on earth.

 

Putting her down, Lars gave Pacifica a chance to clear her lungs free from the weaponized carbon dioxide. The girl coughed and sputtered, before suddenly pointing her handgun straight at Lars. Reflexes took over as Lars moved to give his friend a clear arc of fire. 

 

Firing her gun three times, Pacifica downed three dark elves wielding giant cleaver like swords; striking each one in the narrow eye slits of their spiked helmets; dropping them like a bad habit.

 

Then a high, reptilian shriek cut through the Stygian night. A squadron of Dark Elf cavalry was cutting through the streets armed with cruel, barbed lances. Proud and high on blood-lust, the elves rode armoured velociraptors into battle and their much abused mounts were hungry.

 

Outlaw life had given Lars and Pacifica honed reflexes and the ability to use their skills in deadly tandem. From under her trench coat, Pacifica tossed glowing orbs with strange symbols: a lama, a star, a pine tree.

 

The orbs struck the pavement and exploded into ice spikes, blue flame and a writhing hydra’s nest of snakes. One of the a velociraptors shrieked as ice pillars tore into its guts and through the iron plate armour around its flanks; tossing its rider off in the process. Another beast howled and jumped back with a nimbleness no horse could match. The third rider hacked at the enchanted serpents with a short sword while his mount greedily stuffed its fanged maw with snake flesh.

 

Lars jumped into action as the unit of dinosaur riding elves closed for the kill. Reaching into the tattered bag, he drew the one tangible thing from his old life.

 

The Elf rider cried the scream of the damned as he was cut in half, and his reptilian mount as well.

 

Elf and saurian guts spewed all over the street as Lars re-positioned with the sword of Rose Quartz; the blade that Steven Universe had entrusted him with. A spear as sharp as a scalpel and as deadly as a sniper’s bullet went for Lars’s throat, but he parried the diamond hard lance with his sword.

 

The pink boy narrowly ducked as the raptor’s razor armoured tail nearly took off his head and its fore limbs raked across his chest. It hurt and if he were still human, several major arteries could have been opened. Yet as his pink blood slowly oozed from his wounds, molasses like, Lars could only look at his target with laser focus.

 

The pink sword cut right through the side sabre of the Dark Elf cavalryman and shiskebabed him to his dreadful mount.

 

The Cold one riders pulled back, their raptor mounts hissing and foaming with barely controlled psychotic hunger. The Elves themselves were hardly better, incensed by the felling of their own but also fevered with aroused blood-lust. Lars and Pacifica had gone from being mere prey to being true threats.

 

Helicopters.

 

The sound of Helicopters filled the air. Not just one or two and not just an evac chopper or a news bird. There were hundreds of armoured assault helicopters filling the sky, all with the Logo of the KIRA Pacification Forces. Following behind, transport helicopters ferried scores of troops in their holds and carried nuclear powered tanks on sky-hooks.

 

One such thirty ton vehicle dropped from the helicopter carrying it. Jet thrusters deployed beneath the craft, slowing its fall. When it landed, the tank still had enough mass and impact to create a mini earthquake; knocking Lars and Pacifica off their feet.

 

The tank’s turret swiveled, servos and hydraulics whining. Without warning, the computer system locked onto a target and fired; striking a squadron of Dark Elf Corsairs. Dozens of elves were blown to pieces by the initial explosion; while the pressure shock wave killed twice as many humans who’s been running for their lives or cowering in the rubble.

 

Ariel gunboats opened fire with chain-guns on the burning city, driving back the Dark Elf slavers and massacring the few survivors. The main goal was to drive back the magical invaders and restore the hegemony of the Non-Magical Government. All other priorities were secondary.

 

Then something fell out of the sky along with the jet dropped tanks and armoured troop transports. That something jumped off a chopper with no parachute or jet assistance and landed almost on top of Lars and Pacifica.

 

Two giant, booted feet cracked the concrete where they landed. Lars looked up, clutching his sword as he beheld a massive, female looking individual with sandstone coloured skin.

 

The giant woman’s mane of white hair billowed in the smokey, sooty breeze; her eyes were cold and where her nose should have been was a polished and carved stone.

 

“Jasper!” Lars gasped.

 

The Towering, muscular figure turned to focus on the retreating squadron of Dark Elf Dark Shards. In the light of the blood moon, greenish discoloration marred the left half of her face. Her gem glowed and the alien being formed a dense crash helmet shaped like a battering ram.

 

Jasper slammed her fist into the palm of her hand, her voice thundering out. “You want to dance with the devil? Well, here I am!”

 

She roared like a maniac possessed as she charged at the Dark Elves. Their warded shields provided them no protection as her speed and mass crushed them like insects. Their two-thousand feet per second crossbow bolts bounced off her dense, hard-light body. Jasper stopped in the mass of Elves and began to rip off heads, arms and legs like they were dolls. She roared with rage and pleasure as she licked the blood and offal that splattered on her face.

 

The gem alien from a distant galaxy began to spin like sonic the hedgehog, her long, whipping hair cutting through the Elves like wire through cheese.

 

“Let’s get out of here!” cried Pacifica as she shook Lars out of his shock.

 

Lars got up just as the tank began to spray heavy machine gun fire over the area. Pacifica threw herself behind a burned out car to avoid being shot to pieces while Lars lunged at the tank. He screamed through the air as his great strength launched him.

 

Like a character in the corny anime he used to love, the sword of Rose went through the tank’s armour like butter. Planting his feet on the treads, Lars pulled and drove it back with a glass shattering, tooth shaking shriek of metal.

 

The pink zombie boy jumped back as the tank’s Americium reactor went critical, turning the war machine into a white hot flaming shell.

 

The boy turned, spotting Pacifica who was saying something, pointing and shouting. He didn’t get to hear what she had to say because at that moment, Jasper thrust a a sharp piece of two by four into her throat.

 

Her face went pale with disbelieving surprise as the jagged end of wood ripped open her arteries, blocked her airway and punched through her spinal cord.

 

Jasper pulled back the jagged, splintery piece of wood with devilish glee, her eyes gleaming under the protective plate of her crash helmet.

 

Lars froze as Pacifica fell, her life’s blood gushing like a burst pipe. He couldn’t move and he couldn’t look away from his dead friend. Tunnel vision turned the entire world into the single visage of Jasper lording over Pacifica Northwest’s twitching body.

 

What broke him out of his PTSD afflicted trance was the sight of Jasper taking her pointed board and thrusting it into Pacifica’s corpse. Laughing with ghoulish delight, Jasper raised her spear and stabbed in and out of Pacifica’s body like a savage maniac. Only when the two by four broke apart into a dozen pieces did she step back from the girl’s mutilated body.

 

Jasper cocked her head, arms spread wide to make herself a bigger target; inviting Lars to strike her down.

 

The pink boy lunged with the sword, all finesse and skill with the blade forgotten. Pure adrenaline and naked animal terror drove his weapon. Jasper could smell the rage and terror on him and she wanted more.

 

Pivoting at the last minute, Jasper dodged the blade, which swung wildly where her neck was. Playfully, Jasper pivoted again, moving with the balls of her feet to evade Lars’s desperate strikes. One of her hands glowed and shape-shifted into a pair of dull shears.

 

Lars thrust his sword towards Jasper’s face, trying to destroy the gem on her face which was her true body; not the hard-light illusion that passed for a body.

 

He screamed as Jasper’s scissor hand clamped around his elbow, stopping the pink sword only a finger’s width from her gem. Lars squealed with pain and the shears slowly tightened around his ligaments and bones before suddenly clamping shut.

 

Crudely, his arm fell to the ground, bits of connective tissue and skin hanging off of it; the sword clattered to the ground next to it. Lars fell to his knees, tears streaming, unable to stop crying. He looked up at the savage gem before him. Off in the distance, the Black Ark was setting sail; its crews largely returned and its slave holds packed to capacity. The sails filled with the winds of magic and mages called down lightning strikes to drop helicopters and fighter jets out of the sky.

 

Jasper leered down at Lars with an expression of pure, bottomless, animal hunger. “Hey sexy,” she boomed, “Wanna drop by for dinner?” She clenched her fist and drove it into Lars’s screaming face.

 

The boy saw black and then there were flashes of vision interspersing the void.

 

He saw Hugo Strange’s elite Tiger troops approach.

 

He heard but didn’t see Jasper say something about a change of plans. He saw but didn’t hear the KIRA soldiers being torn apart like fish in a shark’s maw.

 

He saw, heard and smelled Jasper lean over him before licking her lips.

 

More darkness. No way to judge the passage of time.

 

The Black Ark sailed into a fog bank and vanished back to Naggaroth, Land of Chill and Ice.

 

He heard Jasper’s rumbling laughter.

 

Darkness again.

 

Lars opened his eyes groggily, Jasper was dragging him by one foot across muddy ground. In her hand she carried a black garbage bag which was constantly leaking blood. She was taking heading towards an old slave owner’s mansion deep in the bayou. Lightning crackled across the sky and the rain began.

 

Lars fell unconscious again, unaware of the horrors that awaited.


	2. Dinner on the Shores of Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter Sadie escapes the Dark Elves and Lars wakes up to a new nightmare. 
> 
> This chapter will feature hardcore sexuality, murder, cannibalism and more. Turn back if that's not your thing.

Magic War: Blood and Iron

 

Disclaimer: I do not own any third party properties. The main premise is credited to Timeboy08. Enjoy.

 

_Beach City, 2012_

 

_Lars was balls deep in Padparadscha when his girlfriend, best friend since childhood and player 2 (Sadie Miller) barged into his room in the attic. Lars completely blamed his parents for this; it was their damn fault for telling Sadie that he was free and available. His parents should have known that like any teenage boy, his room was never open to the public. They must have assumed that because he’d been hanging out with one of the Off Colour gems from Homeworld that he must be free and dandy; just playing a merry game of checkers or something._

 

_Sadie didn’t say anything right away, her face was blank and it matched and equalled the look of blank shock on Lars’s face; the box of donuts in her hand suddenly forgotten. The only person willing to break the silence was the defective sapphire variant gem, Padparadscha._

 

_Fifteen seconds behind the rest of reality, the defective seer pushed her dwarf sized body back onto Lars’s dick and clapped her elegant gloves hands together. “I’ve had a wonderful vision; the Sadie will walk in during our copulation! Perhaps a three way may result from this momentous occasion!”_

 

_Lars yanked backwards, his lithe pink body flexing as he covered himself with a pillow. “Sadie!” he cried out, “It’s not what it looks like, I swear!” Panicking, he began to reach into his best bag of teenage boy excuses. “She came onto me!”_

 

_Sadie said nothing, her face pale and her hands clenched, mouth slightly open._

 

_Finally Sadie spoke, the donut girl’s voice pleasant and polite; as though she were speaking to a stranger. “I’m glad you’re doing okay, Lars. After escaping an alien planet and leaving everyone worried for months and months, you deserve to get your dick wet.”_

 

“ _Sadie!” Lars protested, getting up, the pillow still shielding his pink pubes._

 

_Sadie cut him off. “I’m really happy for you, Lars. So don’t come back to the Big Donut; we’ve hired a replacement. Lose my phone number, unfriend me on social media and forget where I live or that I exist. It’s just going to be easier for everyone and frankly, I’ve got better things to do than blame myself for this.”_

 

_With that, she dumped the box of donuts she’d brought with her and walked out._

 

“ _Sadie, please, forgive me!” Lars cried out, dropping his pillow and reaching on the ground for his discarded blue jeans. “I’m coming Sadie, just let me explain myself!” he called down the open door where the best thing in his life walked out._

 

_Still moving behind the rest of the time stream Padparadscha was greeted by a horrible revelation. “Curses, I’ve seen a vision where the Sadie prizes monogamy and her relationship with Human-Lars ends.”_

 

_It was then that Lars was distracted by the sound of low, female laughter. Turning around, he saw not only Padparadscha fingering herself in the absence of Lars’s hard thrusting; but Amethyst of all people standing on the window sill with a camera._

 

_The purple gem pointed and laughed at Lars through the windowpane. “Oh man, you fucked up big time!”_

 

“ _Ah!” Lars cried out, yanking up his blue jeans and preserving his modesty. Feeling violated by the short, purple gem, he shouted at her, “How fucking long have you been there?!”_

 

_Amethyst continued to laugh, precariously balancing on the narrow wooden ledge. “I’ve been here since you asked Princess Peach over there to suck your dick. I was just getting in my voyeur fix when Player 2 showed up; daaaayyyyuuum, you fucked up boy!” She continued to laugh, as she fit her old eighties camcorder into her gem._

 

“ _Get the fuck out!” Lars cried, opening up the window and getting up in Amethyst’s stupid, smiling face._

 

_The purple gem chortled at him. “I guess you’re going to have to find another girl with crippling self esteem issues to start dating.” She eyed Lars’s package and raised an eyebrow. “I mean, I’d take to you to the hilt but you’re out of luck if you think I’d ever be seen in public with a piece of shit like you.”_

 

_Padparadscha sat on the bed, legs trembling as she got herself off without any help from her partner or anyone else. The small gem seemed perfectly content to ignore the wider world and just focus on cumming in an environment where she wasn’t constantly hunted by killer robots._

 

“ _Get out now before I shatter your miserable ass!” Lars said in a low, deadly voice._

 

_Amethyst chuckled, looking at Lars through lidded eyes. “Rawr! I guess the big pussy has finally become a tiger. Show me how much you’ve really grown a pair; let’s do it on your parents bed.” She lewdly grabbed her crotch, “I like my meat pink!”_

 

_With that, Lars punched Amethyst in the face, knocking her back and causing her to land on the lawn. The gem paid this no mind, laughing off the impact and casually strolling off to find sugary junk-food and poon._

 

_Lars turned around, suddenly sick to his stomach. The slick, sweat covered Padparadscha lifted her veil of hair and stared at him through her pink, cyclopean eye. Her face strained as though suddenly she were carrying a massive weight on her shoulders, trying to react to Lars in real time. “For what it’s worth, Human-Lars, I care. I cannot replace The Sadie but I hope that we can still be friends.”_

 

_it was then that something broke inside Lars and he fell to the ground, bawling and weeping in a way he hadn’t done since he was a child. Padparadscha materialized clothing onto her body. Taking delicate steps, she put a hand on Lars’s shaking chest. At least she relaxed and stopped forcing herself into the same time stream as everyone else._

 

_Lars believed that he’d become a braver person, that he would never be afraid again. He’d already died and come back; something precious few beings in the universe could claim. It hadn’t made him a better or more moral person. Death, battle and resurrection didn’t make him treat the people around him any better and even with the most kind and honourable of people like Steven; he just continued to take for granted. Much like he’d taken Sadie for granted._

 

_Sea of Claws, The Old World, 2013_

 

Sadie Miller watched as the Witch Elves of Khaine raped Jamie the mailman for nine hours straight. Shackled, muzzled like a dog and caged like cattle; she literally was forced to watch by magic enchantments as the lithe, beautiful, cruel creatures spread Jamie across the damp wooden deck of the black Ark, nailed his hands and feet to the ground and began to slide their daggers in and out of his anus.

 

The head of the Witch Elves fought the others for Jamie’s eyes, beating back her less experienced sisters; she used her talon like claws to gouge out the boy’s beautiful, soulful eyes and then devour them; the optic fluids running down her chin as she chewed greedily.

 

The Witch elves took turns, dagger-raping the boy who through some unseen arcane ritual did not bleed out like he should have. Oh he bled, and bled and bled and bled but somehow he remained alive; skin paper pale and thighs stained with blood, piss and shit as he screamed for his mother over and over and over again.

 

It ended when one of the Har Ganeth executioners stepped into the slave pens. Immediately recognizable for his death’s head helmet and heavy, chopping sword; the Executioner travelled with two corsair bodyguards. Glancing down at the screaming, shit spewing mess that was Jamie, the Executioner grunted with annoyance before chopping off the boy’s head.

 

The Witch elves looked for a moment hurt and disappointed that their fun had been ended, but then the lot of them started laughing and cutting up Jamie’s corpse like fine Kobe Beef. They skewered Jamie’s mutilated and abused meat on iron spikes and started to scorch it over a burning oil brazier; their teeth staining with blood and soot as they feasted on their victim.

 

“The Captain desires a toy,” the Executioner growled. At random, he pointed to Sadie in the densely packed slave cages; modelled after the enclosures used to house cattle and pigs for long range transport. “Grab that one, and take that filthy animal up to the abattoir for processing.”

 

Sadie tried to run, but chains and magic spells held her to the spot; immobilizing her body but keeping her mind active and alert. Cogs and gears clanked and groaned as a metal look lowered from the ceiling and lifted her up by her arms; she screamed into the leather gag in her mouth as her shoulders felt like they’d pop out of her sockets.

 

Without warning, Sadie felt herself drop. Slamming into the deck, she groaned in pain as the chains around her body were unlocked. She didn’t have a chance to move before an animal handler’s leash wrapped around her neck. The Druchii dragged her out of the vast slave enclosure, which filled the lowest levels of the Black arc for what felt like miles and miles.

 

Hauled along like a sack of potatoes, Sadie struggled and kicked but found herself no match for the millennia old and battle hardened elves. Dim oil braziers gave way to bright eldritch lamps as Sadie was brought to a doom sickeningly thick with the smell of fresh blood.

 

Her limbs were spread out by the corsairs, who leered and chuckled behind their Corinthian style helmets. She shrieked through her gag as as a Dark Elf in a leather apron used a razor blade to cut her clothes off. The same razor blade glided over her head, taking off all of her thick, blonde hair. The process was repeated with her armpits and her pubes.

 

Nude and hairless, the dark elves then proceeded to shave her eyebrows off; leaving her truly bare and hairless. Skin stinging from the razor’s preternatural sharpness, she made eye contact by accident with the master butcher. The butcher snickered at the pitiful human and put away his shaving tool.

 

Lifting up a serrated bone saw, the Elf in an apron explained to her. “The Captain doesn’t like his lovers to have limbs. He doesn’t much enjoy chasing prey and when he’s done, it’s easier to drown them.” He cackled maniacally as he started to sharpen his saw on a whetstone.

 

Sadie’s eyes widened and tears began to flow as the Corsair guards held her arms against a heavy chopping block.

 

Everything looked hopeless until something huge and bovine erupted through one of the ship’s bulkheads. The elves jumped backwards as a huge half flesh, half machine Minotaur bellowed an eardrum shattering roar; the thing’s body twisted with the shriek of demonic steam engines and cords of raw, red muscle.

 

“Fucking beast handlers!” the Executioner cried out, readying his sword as the cyborg Minotaur charged blindly forward. In the maelstrom of madness and insanity, Beast handlers with whips and halberds arrived to corral their prize monster. Sadie was forgotten in the light of such a capture. One little human slave wasn’t worth as much as this demonic killing machine.

 

She ran and she had no idea where she was going, the gag made it hard to breath and the rough deck ripped apart her soles with splinters and rusty nails. She never stopped for any of it, even as the Dark Elves started to chase her bloody footprints.

 

Pure animal panic gave Sadie wings as the hallways of the Black Ark blended together like the mythical labyrinth of Daedalus. Everywhere she could hear screams, the shrieks of magical beasts; the grind of machinery and the groan of sails and masts. Coming closer and closer behind her was the _clank, clank, clank_ of Dark Elf armour in full run.

 

She almost didn’t see it in the dim lighting as the doom loomed ahead. Stubby fingers grabbing the handle, she ignored the written warning in a foreign language printed above the door. Twisting the handle, Sadie was struck by a blast of freezing air and even colder sea spray.

 

The light blinded her, but behind her the sound of Dark Elf feet was almost upon her. She had a choice. She could jump or she could end up like Jamie, or end up like her mother had. One millisecond of the thought of ending up as the Captain’s “toy” was enough for her. She took the leap into the Sea of Claws just as a dark Elf’s clawed gloves raked her back.

 

Gravity took hold of Sadie and finally her eyes adjusted. There was miles and miles of endless sea, and just on the horizon was what looked like land; covered by fog and cloud.

 

The sea took her, a violent current dragging her under. There was darkness and Sadie clawed for the light; the briny sea powered up her nose, down her throat and into her ears. It blinded her and sucked the heat from her body.

 

Everything blackened and she knew nothing more.

 

_2013, Slave House, Delmarva_

 

Lars groaned and gasped as he came to, the first thing he noticed was that his arm was back in place. “Okay,” he grunted as his fingers moved weakly. At around the elbow area, a crude setup of stitches and staples had made his arm whole. To top it off he had some new effects, “Hey, an Apple watch,” he remarked at the computerized device which was displaying his vital signs. “None too shabby.”

 

He looked up “And things are looking . . . oh fuck,” he gulped as he remembered the events of the past 24 hours. Sitting next to him in a rotting oak chair was the bloody mutilated corpse of Pacifica Northwest; similarly stitched and stapled up, though she still had a few loops of intestines sticking out here and there. Flies buzzed over her body and a rat was crawling up her leg.

 

“Hey!” Lars shouted at the assorted vermin moving on on Pacifica’s cooling corpse. “Get the fuck away from her, you goddamn animals!”

 

_Crash!_

 

It was than that Jasper’s meaty hand slapped down on Pacifica’s thigh and grabbed the rat on her, causing the chair she sat in to nearly splinter apart. The huge gem grunted as she bit the rat in half and started chewing like it was delicious. The gem shoved the whole thing in her mouth, flesh, bones, hair and all. The grinding and munching would have made Lars puke if he’d eaten anything in the last six months.

 

Idly, Jasper scratched at the green discoloration on her face before returning to what she was doing. Drawing a box of matches from her stone, the warrior Quartz began to light a series of candles across a long banquet table. Little by little, the flickering lights revealed a mould covered, dilapidated pre Civil War era manor. Once upon a time, a family had turned human beings into things and made quite a handsome living from it. Jasper now lived here, continuing the tradition of exploitation and misery.

 

Lars looked around, seeing old paintings, fine sculptures and a door with an electric light on the other side. The smell of cooking meat and spices wafted over the scent of decay, garbage and dampness. It smelled like pork was on the menu tonight.

 

Paying no mind to Lars, Jasper put away her matches and strolled over to a tool cabinet by the boarded up window. Reaching inside, she drew out a diamond tipped drill normally used for hard rock mining and sampling. Cracking her neck, she took the drill which was meant to be mounted on a hydraulic jack and pressed it into the back of her neck.

 

Sparks flew as the diamond drill burrowed through the skin of Jasper’s hard-light body. Wincing with pain, she pushed further and the tone of the drill changed as it hit something really hard. Withdrawing the two hundred pound, six thousand horsepower drill she inserted an injection gun into the hole. The delicate medical tool beeped as its main chamber was filled with an orange, translucent fluid.

 

Stomping over to Pacifica, she drove the needle into the dead girl’s brain and pressed the trigger. Instantly, a green light blinked on the side of the gun as the tiny machine pumped Jasper’s spinal fluid into Pacifica’s brain. The gem withdrew the injection gun from Pacifica’s temple and along with the drill, inserted it back into the tool chest.

 

The change was delayed but rapid. From the injection sight, Pacifica’s skin started to take on a striped orange and red sandstone palette. The girl’s hair turned a bleach white and her eyes shot open. Pacifica sat up in her chair, staring blankly into space with glazed, orange eyes. Insects and scavengers fled her body like her flesh and fluids had turned poisonous.

 

Lars watched with shock and morbid fascination as Jasper snapped her fingers in front of Pacifica’s face; causing her cloudy eyes to follow and her head to cock and follow the sound. He’d never actually seen another being like him except for Lion; the magical Lion that acted as Steven Universe’s loyal familiar.

 

He stared at Pacifica, hoping for some sign of recognition from her; to hear a word edgewise or see a change in her blank facial expression. Nothing; she remained just like a zombie, as if Jasper’s spinal fluid had hijacked the decaying cellular mechanisms of Pacifica’s human body but not given her any kind of divine spark or soul.

 

Lars nearly jumped out of his skin as Jasper dumped a large plate of roasted meat and baked, buttery biscuits in front of him. The large gem grunted at him, “Eat up, I made this.” Like an expert waitress she placed carefully in front of Lars a large bowl of steaming chili and a giant mug full of strong alcohol.

 

Confident in her dinner presentation, Jasper took a seat at the head of the table. Her massive frame just barely fit into the welded steel throne, padded with old couch cushions. Taking a large pull from a bottle of Jack Daniels, the gem warrior wiped her lisp with her hand and started tucking into a punch bowl filled with chili.

 

The pink boy watched in a kind of numb fascination as Jasper used a garden trowel as a spoon, shovelling in the thick, chunky food into her hungry maw. After two or three trowels full, Jasper began to chew, slowly and deliberately; savouring the flavors and really masticating that food. Her cheeks bulged to capacity and her eyes closed as the taste of the meal took her somewhere else.

 

Lars looked down at his own food, the meat in front of him looked like some kind of ham hock; covered in a thick spice rub and partially cut up for his convenience. Flexing his damaged arm, he realized that the partially reattached limb wasn’t bound in any way and that there was a fork and knife for his use. Testing the chair, the rotted wood refused to give way; as he strained, he sword he could see a golden glisten as if some kind of arcane energy ran through the rotting hickory.

 

“Eat,” Jasper’s booming voice startled Lars, “The food’s taste is tied in with its temperature; the chemical bonds change so very easily on earth.” She laughed politely and used a fuck-off big knife to carve a large pig leg that had the wrong shaped hip joint for a pig. The tiger striped gem smiled as she piled pork slices high on her plate and began to eat them with her machete and a barbecue fork.

 

With clumsy fingers, Lars picked up the fork and stirred the chili. There were a few chunks of onion and pepper floating in the mix alongside the beans and ground meat; but there didn’t seem to be any broken glass or rusty nails. Hesitantly, he forked out a dripping wad of chili. Silently he cursed Jasper for not giving him a spoon because the hot chili drippings hurt like hell.

 

He sniffed the ground food and licked it. It didn’t taste poisoned. Actually, it was a bit too salty. The chili that Jasper prepared wasn’t going to win any blue ribbons but probably a human could eat it without getting poisoned.

 

Jasper repeated her ritual, stuffing her mouth to full capacity and then slowly and dramatically chewing it all slowly. As she swallowed down the chewed pork leg, she noticed Lars start to work a fork full of chili around his mouth and smiled. “So I see you like it,” she purred. “That’s good. It took a lot of work to cook something that I found palatable; I don’t know how the purple runt went all those years just inhaling garbage.”

 

She laughed and went for another trowel full of chili and a whole biscuit drenched in gravy. Sitting on her steel throne, Jasper chewed like some tyrannical fairy-tale king while Pacifica started lowering her face directly into a bowl of chili and began lapping it up like a dog.

 

“I guess you’re wondering about this,” said Jasper through a full mouth, pointing with her table machete the green discoloration. “Hugo Strange cured my corruption; but I need to report back to him for periodic treatment to prevent relapse. Do you know anything about Chronic pain?” she inquired as she took another long drink of whisky from the bottle.

 

Lars nervously shook his head, going for another fork full of chili to keep his jailer happy.

 

“Imagine you have a sickness in your body that has no cause, no end and no beginning,” Jasper explained, scratching the discoloration on her face, looking down at her food with a hint of shame. “Imagine your best day is most people’ worst. I found that being shot, stabbed, burned, clubbed and sawed apart doesn’t hurt as much as this; and this doesn’t give me the luxury of a cause I can terminate.” She grabbed her eating utensils with shaking hands, “I’ve figured out how Strange did it, it’s only a matter of time before I synthesize a forever cure; but even that won’t take away the pain.”

 

Jasper’s eyes lit up with hunger. Not hunger for the crude, bulk feast before her but hunger directed at Lars himself. Her golden tiger’s eyes looked at him like he were food. A cold sweat broke over the young man’s body as Jasper stared at him for longer than was comfortable.

 

The gem warrior cocked her head, playfully leaning her face in the palm of her hands. “The good thing about chronic pain is it teaches you to really forget everything you ever knew. I’ve spent all these years still trying to fight the Great Gem Rebellion that I forgot how to really kill the enemies I’d yet to meet. I never realized I was good at cooking, or mechanical engineering, gemetic engineering. I never understood how I could stand on this earth and take its riches for myself.”

 

Something in the chili got in the way of Lars’s chewing; something organic and hard. Unnerved by Jasper’s small talk and the look she gave him, she dared to ask. “So, why are we here?” Next to him, Pacifica continued to lap up the chili without need to stop and breathe.

 

The grin from Jasper was anything but friendly. “Well Hugo Strange wants Dipper and Mabel Pines for himself; he also wants anyone who might know where they are, like your little friend that I saved.” Reaching for the bottle, Jasper drained her bottle of whisky and slammed it down with satisfaction. “But he doesn’t need to know that you two are here. Let’s say I like the look of you and besides, I enjoy a meal before sex.” She started shovelling down chili again.

 

“What?” Lars asked in a louder voice than he’d meant, spitting out the indigestible morsel in his mouth. Disbelief took him over as his mind refused to process just what Jasper really had planned for him.

 

Jasper guffawed, “Well you’re one of Rose Quartz’s mutants. As long as she or her mutant half form are alive, you’re alive. I recently learned I can create familiars but they don’t make good talkers.” Jasper’s gem began to glow and she reached her hand inside; pulling out something long, iron and covered in straps.

 

She explained to him, “See, Laramie Bariga, you won’t really die until your brain is destroyed. So that means I can be a little harder on you between the sheets. If your colon ruptures then I won’t just be left with a dead lay.”

 

_Crash!_

 

In the candlelight, Lars saw what was heavy enough to make all the silverware and kitchenware rattle and jump. Long, banana shaped and forged of crude iron, Lars still refused to realize what he was looking at.

 

“Oops,” Jasper chuckled, “I dropped my monster dildo, that I strap on for the horizontal mambo!” Her loud, braying laughter reverberated through the hall, leaving Lars with a deepening sense of dread and mounting terror. Not just fear, terror.

 

It got worse, as Lars realized that the piece of meat he’s spat out was a human toe. The fork fell from his hand and hot, stinging tears began to fall from his eyes. He looked over to Jasper and then to Pacifica, “Don’t eat that!” he shrieked. “STOP!” He cried, his voice booming like a hurricane, knocking Pacifica into the wall. Mouldy drywall and broken wooden beams fell over Pacifica as Lars’s newfound power backfired.

 

“Pacifica!” Lars screamed, as the now orange and tan girl lay still on the ground. A similar coloured hand shot out as grabbed him by the throat. The pink boy’s eyes bulged as Jasper strangled him like a certain yellow TV dad.

 

“You think you’re funny,” Jasper snarled, golden eyes bloodshot with rage. “You think you’re smart? You think you’re too good for my food?”

 

Lars struggled with all his might against Jasper, his limp hand flailing against her adamantine grip and the glowing force field in the chair. Lars wriggled like a fish out of water and there was nothing he could do to break free. He was trapped.

 

Jasper’s large, white teeth ground out literal sparks. “Well, I can be a rude asshole too. I don’t like your floppy ears, they turn me off.”

 

She held out her hand and her finger glowed. Lars began to gurgle through the strangling grip around his throat, face contorted in terror as the gem warrior’s finger turned into a pair of jagged scissors. With a sick glee, Jasper snipped off slowly Lars’s stretched lobes.

 

A keening whine like a wounded puppy wailed from Lars’s throat as his ears were mutilated; his acrylic plugs falling to the ground. Pink blood oozed out of the wounds and soaked his already filthy shirt. He couldn’t even move his head in Jasper’s vice grip

 

Jasper grinned as she pulled back her finger scissors, “What’s next, little boy? You’re not going to need lips for what I want from you tonight!”

 

The weak, animal whining sputtered and squeaked from Lars as Jasper’s scissors got closer and closer to his face.

 

**Beep-Beep!**

 

**Beep-Beep!**

 

**Beep-Beep!**

 

Lars almost pissed himself as Jasper’s finger turned to normal.

 

“Hugo strange,” the gem warrior snarled. Shoving her broad, ugly face into Lars’s, she whispered to her potential sex slave/meal. “Mamma’s gotta take a call from work. You sit here and think how lucky you are to have me.”

 

Without warning, Jasper winked and licked Lars with a big, striped, tiger like tongue. Lars vomited into his mouth as she walked away; the one thing on his mind was the punishment he’d get if he got any on her.

 

When Jasper finally left to answer the person on the communicator, that was when Lars allowed himself a moment to cry like a baby.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9D2mvoMKLE
> 
> i've decided this will be Lars's new theme


	3. A reaper's feast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the final chapter. As of now it is no longer cannon with my friend's work on deviantart. But I couldn't just let this story die. 
> 
> So without further ado, please enjoy this humble story.

The Magic War: Blood and Iron

 

Chapter 3: A Reaper’s feast

 

_Beach City High School, 2011_

 

“ _I heard that Adrienne girl is such a slut,” Lars blurted out during his and Sadie’s smoking break._

 

_Almost immediately, his kinda-sorta-if-you-sqinted girlfriend, Sadie Miller punched him in the shoulder._

 

“ _Ouch!” Lars protested, cradling his bony shoulder from Sadie’s shockingly powerful impact. “What the fuck was that for?”_

 

_Sadie spat out her cigarette and rubbed out the butt with her shoe. “Don’t say that about her, Lars. You don’t know anything about her and she doesn’t need you adding to the shit in her life.”_

 

“ _She’s gotta be a slut,” said Lars, not learning his lesson. “With big hooters like that and short crop shirts; there’s no way she’s not a slut banging every weird dude in biker bars and working as a stripper or something.”_

 

“ _Having a big rack is genetics,” Sadie rolled her eyes at her boyfriend’s total idiocy. “It doesn’t magically turn you into into a dick vacuum. Those things are for feeding babies.”_

 

“ _Yeah,” Lars snickered, putting out his own cigarette. “Just like yours feed me, baby.” He attempted to put on something of a charming grin, only cementing what a fucking worthless little weasel he was._

 

_Sadie glowered at him and crossed her arms. “You know that guys call me a slut all the time.”_

 

“ _What?” said Lars, instantly furious. “Who the fuck says that? I’ll kick their ass!”_

 

“ _It’s guys just like you, Lars,” deadpanned Sadie. “Guys who think because I’m short I do nothing but suck dick; and also somehow I’m too fat and ugly to get laid but I’m also cheating on you with every hot guy on the basketball team.”_

 

“ _Ah, those fucking jerks!” Lars began to steam, “You’re no slut, Sadie!”_

 

“ _Just like Adrienne isn’t, either,” Sadie said tersely. “I’m going back inside before the bell rings.”_

 

_Lars watched dumbfounded as his girlfriend walked away, “Hey Sadie, come on! I didn’t mean anything by it. I wasn’t saying you were a slut!”_

* * *

 

_Delmarva Slave house, now_

 

Lars Bariga shut his eyes and tried to make it all go away. He could makes the sights go away but the other monsters refused. The smell of cooked human flesh tortured him with vile parodies of his favourite childhood dishes. Mould and mildew pervaded every breath he took; a reminder of hundreds of years of decrepitude and decay. The stony, silicone smell of his own blood covering his shirt was a reminder of the cruelty that Jasper could unleash on him.

 

He really tried hard not to think about his ears. He had spent almost two years trying to get his ears stretched into the floppy loops that everyone knew him for. They were the thing he loved most about himself. Even after turning into a pink zombie, he found that his newfound superhuman flesh could be stretched a few more sizes without blowing out or scarring. It had been a great reward for him and a great source of personal pride. Jasper just took it away from him.

 

Speaking of Jasper, he really didn’t want to think about her either and especially not about what she wanted to do with him. Try as he might, her giant, rusted iron dildo was still sitting on the dinner table between the gravy boat and the steamed peas. She was right when she said that the thing wouldn’t kill him. It would very likely rip apart his anus into shreds, the sharp bits would drag his intestines out his ravaged asshole and the strength of Jasper’s own thrusts would very likely shatter his pelvis like glass. None of that would kill him and he would given time and sufficient protein, regenerate from all of that.

 

Jasper would well do what she wanted to him for as long as she fed him and gave him sufficient time between fucks. That was a big if. The best case scenario in this was that Jasper got bored and crushed his head like a grape; killing him once and for all beyond even Steven’s healing powers to bring back. The worst case scenario was that Jasper never, ever got tired of him and he would be her sex slave until the stars burned out and the universe suffered heat death.

 

Lars remembered old stories from his grandmother about the Japanese occupation of the Philippines and the American occupation before that. Honestly he barely ever listened to the old lady and he’d forgotten more than most people would ever hear from their grandparents. However he did remember what became of women chosen to be “comfort women” by the Japanese army, and what those women did to avoid that fate.

 

Cracking open his eyes, Lars forced himself to see the world while he still had a chance. He would do everything that he possibly could in order to avoid becoming Jasper’s pretty pink comfort boy.

 

He saw Pacifica Northwest, cheeto puff zombie; shambling out of her chair and walking past him without making eye contact through those glazed, dead eyes. He yelped against his will when she bumped the back of his chair. As she left the room, he swore that for a moment he could see a flicker of recognition in those glassy eyes.

 

Lars knew that he had little time. There was no telling when Jasper’s video conference would end. He looked down at the binds around his hands; made from some materiel that had never been seen on earth before the alien gem race arrived. Thinking back to comic books he used to read, Lars figured that if he could dislocate the thumb on his mangled, healing arm then he could slip his whole arm out and use that to free himself.

 

Pulling with all his might, Lars was stunned when he heard a crack. The first thing through his mind was that Jasper was back, then as the chair fell backwards he realized that his actions had damaged the rickety old hickory. Landing with a thump, the chair fell apart; no longer reinforced by the gem designed structural integrity field. His superhuman strength made short work of the chair and each loop of plastoid substance was held in place by a tiny clasp. Removing the clasp, the loops dissolved into useless nano-particle dust.

 

That was it! He was free!

 

And still very, very trapped.

 

Lars looked down at the Apple watch Jasper had given him. The updated software displayed his full body anatomy, his vitals and a number of life sign indicators that the finest biologists and geologists would be unable to understand. However as near as Lars could figure it, his arms was knitting nicely and the food he’d eaten was speeding the process.

 

His body began to shiver as he thought of the few spoonfuls of human chili he’d unwittingly eaten, vomited up and then swallowed again. His stomach felt deeply sick in a way that he hadn’t felt since he was still fully human.

 

Guilt took a second place to survival as Lars began to exit the cursed dining room. The hinges of the door creaked as Lars’s good hand turned the knob and stepped through. Crouching and tiptoeing, he began to move as far away from that evil place.

 

The pink boy moved through darkened hallways lit by nothing but moonlight, filled with stately and decaying pictures of the salve owning family who’d once owned this house. The baleful eyes of grateful slaves judged Lars and bronze busts of stately white land owners looked straight ahead as if stuck in each their own personal hell.

 

Spiders crawled up webs and bats flew down the hallway to catch stray insects that Jasper would never be bothered to exterminate.

 

_Creak!_

 

A door opened before Lars as he was greeted by a bright electronic light and the sound of Jasper’s booming voice.

 

“Yes Sir, Professor Strange,” Jasper affirmed. “Civilian population suffered seventy five percent casualties while police and law enforcement suffered ninety-five percent and high casualties from the attack.”

 

On a sophisticated communicator screen, Professor Hugo strange nodded. _“Excellent, this should make it easier to lobby congress to hand over police and military control to us. When KIRA controls all branches of military and law enforcement, only when will be able to provide adequate peace and security against the magical world.”_

 

Jasper nodded in contractual agreement. “I also personally executed the civilian government. Beach City and soon the State Legislature will be under direct control by our organization.”

 

“ _That is excellent, Jasper,” Strange purred, unperturbed by the loss of human life. “These civilian governments are weak, ineffectual and prone to avoiding difficult choices. There will be time for petty debate about human rights and violating the constitution when the magical crisis is over.”_

 

Lars turned around, heading as quietly as he could in the opposite direction. His normally slow heartbeat was now up near normal human levels. Grinding his teeth, Lars could just make out a big steel door that looked relatively new and freshly painted. Giving this a push, he found that the hinges turned smoothly and without a peep. Thanking his lucky stars, Lars stepped into a room full of sterile white tile and freezing temperatures.

 

It was only when Lars saw the large cauldron of blood, the walk in freezer and the body bags hanging from meat hooks that he realized he was in Jasper’s personal fridge. A numb sense of horror took over Lars and he walked as a primitive man walking in fear of ghosts and spirits. At any moment he was worried that adult and child sized bodies would come to life and—

 

Over by a large stainless Steel table, a dead Texan lay spread eagle and wide eyed; his guts placed in neat plastic bags next to him and labelled. Almost like a bad joke, a tray of taco shells sat next to the dead Texan along with his fine ostrich belt and running shoes. A printed out recipe for ceviche lay next to the man’s liver; who close up only looked a few years older than Lars was.

 

A squeal of metal hinges nearly made Lars jump out of his skin as one of the black body bags swung and knocked him off balance. Nimbly righting himself and standing up, Lars watched in horror as Jasper stepped from behind a trio of corpses with no skin. “So, you’re just going to leave before desert gets rolled out?” In her meaty hands she lovinglycaressed a weapon that looked like a massive, spiked paint roller.

 

Terror gripped Lars and he chose the better part of valour, running past the pendulum swing of the body bag and shoving his way through several more dead bodies with the skin removed and sliced into strips; all the better to make chicharones.

 

Stumbling and panicking, Lars pushed past another well oiled steel door and found himself back in the muggy, mouldy night of the mansion. Racing down a flight of stairs, he heard Jasper holler behind him. “The Longer you hide, the harder I’m going to fuck you! So keep hiding, boy!” She laughed maniacally as the boy panicked and ran.

 

Looking out the window he could see that he was on the second floor of the mansion. Running for a window, he threw a fist against a flimsy set of wooden boards—only to be thrown back by an orange structural integrity field. Gasping in pain, Lars looked down at his skinned knuckles; the pinkish bones gleaming where the skin had been torn off. So the whole damn house was a fucking indestructible shell.

 

He still needed to escape. He took a random turn past a roaring fireplace and down a long, lonely hallway. Only for Jasper to casually walk through a wall like the Terminator coming for a casual Sunday Massacre. Th gem shook drywall out of her hair before blowing Lars a kiss. In the moonlight, her giant strap-on dildo of death cast an ominous shadow. “I promise, if you drop your pants now and surrender you’ll like it after a while.”

 

Lars gave a most unmanly shriek and turned around, just as Jasper’s spiky paint roller swung down at him. Splinters of wood exploded everywhere as Jasper’s monstrous strength punched a hole in the hardwood floor. Another swing passed close enough to Lars’s head that he felt a sharp nick against his hairline. The mad gem laughed as she swung sideways, smashing a rather expensive looking TV mounted on a fall.

 

“Fuck’s sakes!” Jasper bellowed with anger, “How am I going to replace that?”

 

The pink boy kept running, kicking down a rotting old door and heading down into what looked like an ancient, flooded root cellar. The boy ran past jars of pickled tongues, hearts and babies that would be good for eating once their little onesies and baby clothes were peeled off.

 

Seeing a deep pool of water, Lars ran down a set of creaky stairs and jumped in. The murky water jumped up his nose and down his throat; forcing his anaerobic anatomy to taste the taste of decaying meat, muck, murk and shit. Lars squinted in the dark water, utterly blind; moving his way by feel.

 

He kicked, having adjusted to the shocking cold of the water and the unwelcome floating things that bumped into him. He started to kick as he’d once done on the beaches of his hometown. All things considering, he was a fast swimmer for a humanoid and his inability to drown served him well as he moved to escape his pursuer.

 

Something bumped into his head and he cried out, scum water pouring down his lungs and filling them with mud and unspeakable things. The thing he’d bumped his head into was a rusted, steel ladder. Swimming upwards, Lars’s hands met a plastic hatch of some kind and a metal latch. Turning and pushing, he felt warm air on his skin.

 

Lars exploded from the surface of the dark brown water, coughing up the vileness inside his body and taking in sweet breaths of air. He blinked, his eyes sore as he rubbed the gunk and grime out of them. Gasping and inhaling the new scents, he caught notes of fresh cement, drywall and new sawdust. Peeking around him, he saw stark grey walls and floor. This building was definitely new.

 

Lars picked himself up, got his footing and started to run again; not knowing how good a swimmer Jasper was or how long he had.

 

Then he heard it.

 

“ _Lars”_

 

It was barely a whisper. His old self wouldn’t have been able to catch the noise; but his new zombie body had the ears of a hunting dog. He knew that voice. He looked at the adjacent hallways, all lit by halogen work lights and hanging fluorescent bulbs. He gasped as he nearly tripped over some tools that Jasper had left behind.

 

“ _Lars”_

 

It was a little louder and there was no mistaking the owner of that voice.

 

“Pacifica,” Lars whispered. Turning all around him, he saw and heard nothing. Bending low, he looked down at the pile of scattered tools. He saw something that spoke to him. A shovel with sharpened edges and a serrated left side for cutting through difficult dirt. Hoisting it like a poleaxe, Lars began to move down the hall with the least amount of obstacles.

 

In this _Alice in Wonderland_ shit-hole, Lars kept expecting Jasper to walk through another wall. He knew he was no match for her at his best, but he couldn’t just leave Pacifica to rot here. He couldn’t leave her like he’d chickened out on Sadie. He couldn’t back down like he’d done every. Single. Damn. Time.

 

He would get Pacifica and he’d rescue her and they’d be zombie buddies together. It all seemed to simple when Lars thought about it.

 

“Lars,” came Pacifica’s voice, louder this time. She was close.

 

“Pacifica?” Lars called, frightened of catching Jasper’s attention. He moved quicker, ignoring the squeaking of his wet shoes and the dripping of his sodden clothes. The sound took him towards a series of shelves full of car and machine parts. The number of work lights was getting fewer and fewer.

 

“Pacifica!” Lars called out, in full shout. He brandished his shovel in his good arm. “Pacifica!”

 

“Lars!” he heard her shout and he ran until there was only a single hanging work light. Ahead of him was a corrugated metal stairwell. Back-lit at the top of the stairs was a silhouette of a girl who he’d take a bullet for and had taken bullets for him in the past.

 

He couldn’t stop himself from grinning and feeling joy. For the first time since this nightmare began, it looked like there was something good coming his way. “Oh shit, Pacifica. Tell me it’s really you! I promise I’ll bake an _ube_ when I get the chance.”

 

Pacifica said nothing, her features shrouded in darkness and standing perfectly still.

 

Then the one single work light began to flicker.

 

Pacifica was gone from the top of the stairs.

 

The lights came back on and Lars saw Pacifica crawling down the stairs like a lizard.

 

The lights went off.

 

The lights came on just time to see Pacifica’s howling, banshee face and jagged, stone shard teeth.

 

He screamed as her razor sharp chompers dug into his shoulder. Her clawed hands raked over his bony chest, leaving deep rents and exposing pink, stony bone. The boy screamed in agony as his best friend went full zombie on his ass.

 

Acting on instinct, Lars slammed his knee into Pacifica’s side. Her form shuddered from the impact but her jaws held fast. Las slammed his knee into her ribs twice more and he felt the bone cave in. She loosened her jaws, ripping away a mouthful of flesh in the process.

 

Roaring with anger, Lars swing his shovel at Pacifica like an axe. In mid-swing, Pacifica spat out the hunk of meat and looked at him with perfectly clear, golden eyes. “Wha--?” she tried to ask, right before the sharp metal edge cut her head off.

 

Pacifica’s head landed on the ground while her body stood standing. The arms began to flail wildly and the legs ran randomly forward. Orange blood gushed up out of the stump and the bit of broken spine wriggled and shivered like an exposed worm in sunlight.

 

Lars ground his teeth, his weak arm flailing around madly. The serrated edge came down on Pacifica’s collar bone and opened her up like a holiday bird. He wasn’t thinking, just acting. The shovel came down and down, cracking an arm bone, chopping through ribs, severing the spinal cord and cracking the pelvis. Orange blood covered the walls and the boy as the work light flickered on and off; each time revealing more blood and guts with each flash of light.

 

Lars hardly remembered when he stopped cutting Pacifica to pieces. There was no instant moment of regret and sorrow. Just a gradual breakdown of the psychotic rage that gripped him and the slow return of his peripheral vision and his fragmented, shattered sense of morality and belief in goodness.

 

Lars dropped the shovel, long since snapped in two from its grizzly work. He saw the head of Pacifica snapping and snarling; still moving, just like a spider’s severed leg. Like him, Pacifica would only truly die when her brain was destroyed.

 

The boy’s hands trembled as he took up a rusty tool box and dumped out everything inside. “Yeah, I’ll bake you a nice _ube_ , when I get the chance. We’ll get a chance” Lars kept talking to the severed, snarling head; his eyes glazed and filled with tears. He fought to keep a friendly smile on his face. “And we’ll go out and see a movie. Maybe we can date. But if you don’t want to date I won’t cry _friend zone_ or something. I don’t have many friends left. I left them all. I don’ t have many friends left.”

 

He was careful to gently place Pacifica’s severed head inside the toolbox where it wouldn’t rattle around too much. He then closed the lid and locked it shut. Lars stumbled up the stairs like a drunk. A deep tiredness settled into his bones and he just wanted to fall asleep and never wake up, ever.

 

Never having to think or feel again sounded like a great idea to Lars.

 

He saw something good, at the top of the stairs was a two story garage. Inside the garage was a sports car with an unusual sandstone orange and red stripe pattern. Looked like Jasper was embracing her inner gear head.

 

“See Pacifica,” he spoke to the toolbox that he cradled like a baby. “There’s our ride out of here. We can probably find you a new body from a graveyard or something. It can be just like Frankenstein,” he gave a polite, hollow laugh at his terrible joke.

 

Slowly, moving like molasses in winter; Lars walked down a stainless steel set of stairs to the first floor of the garage. Heading to the passenger seat of the car door, Lars made sure to buckle up Pacifica’s tool box nice and safe; so the wouldn’t roll around during the drive.”

 

With that in mind, he got a look at himself in a giant, grease stained mirror placed on one wall of the garage. From head to foot, he was now brown with sewage, silt and worse. Almost none of his original pink remained; even his candy floss hair looked like something on a drowned stuffed toy. The dirt on his skin felt very much in line with the dirt on his soul. There would be no hiding his sins and when he found any allies or friends, he was going to have a diddly of a time explaining what happened to Pacifica.

 

Maybe he could turn her over to Dipper and Mabel before he killed himself. That was looking like a good way for making up for all he’d done.

 

He owed it to Pacifica to get her out of here and to someone who could heal her. Maybe the Crystal Gems could help if they were still alive. Maybe Steven could help; he was definitely alive if Jasper was telling the truth.

 

The boy got into the car, sitting his filthy ass down on the leather seat and opening the sun visor in the hopes that Jasper had left her keys there. This was definitely a strange car, and not just for the paintjob or the Diamond Authority Hood ornament.

 

There were no pedals in this car. There was nowhere to stick a key. How did Jasper drive this thing?

 

And there was a green splotch one one side of the hood; he could see it now in the wall mirror. Jasper must have been obsessive to make this car just like her.

 

**SLAM!**

 

The driver’s door closed without any help from Lars. As he yelled in fear, the seat belt extended like a snake and wrapped itself around him; stronger than Steel, it held Lars prisoner in the car.

 

A voice spoke that rumbled through the car like the purr of an engine. “What kind of slut are you? Do you just jump into any woman with her legs open?”

 

Lars looked straight ahead, “No.” he whispered. “No fucking way! No!” he tried to deny it, even as he saw in the mirror the eyes that made up the car’s headlights and the grinning teeth that made up the grill. He’d once seen Amethyst turn into a literal attack helicopter, but he didn’t know that Jasper could turn into a fucking sexual Cadillac.

 

Jasper grinned at Lars as her engine revved. What looked cute in a CGI kids movie looked horrifying on a three-D, physical being. She looked like something that was shit out by Stephen King after watching too many classic car shows.

 

“Hang on, slut!” she called, just as her engine began to roar and her wheels began to spin.

 

Lars screamed in terror as Jasper literally honked her own horn and started doing donuts in the garage. The boy in vain tried to grab the wheel or the door handle, but both of those resisted them with adamantine might.

 

The world turned into a crazy kaleidoscope of colours and shapes as Jasper’s tired burned rubber, the centrifugal force pulling Pacifica’s box out of the seat belt and flying at the garage mirror.

 

Lars screamed as a rain of broken mirror shards pelted him in the face, he yowled as the broken glass went into his eyes. He barely had a moment to cry when Jasper’s front bumper slammed into a steel support beam. The wind was knocked out of him as the indestructible belts held him firm.

 

Jasper let out a whooping, rebel yell as she spun in reverse and knocked over several tool cabinets and crushed a wooden crate under her wheels. Lars got thrown backwards into his seat when Jasper’s rear bumper struck the back wall of the garage and nearly broke it down. With neck snapping force, the evil-car alien changed velocity to move counterclockwise in a screaming, hollering, laughing donut ring.

 

The car stopped and Lars’s neck felt like it was about to fly apart. Jasper’s engine rumbled as he saw the broken steel beam that was only inches from his left eye. His whole body shook and he froze with terror. His eyes bugged and he silently mouthed out prayers to a god that would not and had never listened. One of his eyes had blurry vision where glass scratched his cornea, and his hands trembled.

 

“Let’s test your luck, slut,” Jasper bellowed with joy and pleasure. Slowly, she began to reverse her wheels, pulling away from the steel beam that broke through her windshield. The dented back bumper tapped against the box that held Pacifica’s head, knocking it over and nearly crushing it flat. Inside the toolbox, the severed head ignorantly snapped and growled.

 

“Please,” Lars cried out in vain, “No more. Just, no more. I can’t take any more. Please, just let me go! Please, please, please!”

 

In response, Jasper’s wheels span, burning against the concrete and propelling his face straight for the jagged piece of metal support. Lars screamed as his death rushed at him.

 

...

...

...

..

 

Lars felt like shit. From his undamaged eye, he could see the badly dented and damaged toolbox that held Pacifica’s head. He couldn’t help himself as he rolled out of the driver’s seat of Jasper’s car body. Jasper herself was bent and folded up like a regular car should be, silent and stationary was she. Lars felt his face with his almost healed weak arm, a giant gash ran from his temple to the back of his head. His skull was intact.

 

He smelled petroleum. Jasper had crashed into a series of oil drums full of fuel. A single static electricity spark set the whole thing alight and Jasper’s body was covered in flames. Lars frog crawled out of the way to avoid becoming pink barbecue.

 

He kept crawling, taking the special toolbox to his chest like a childhood teddy bear. He looked at car-Jasper, as her body undid the shape-shifting and returned to its default form.

 

Jasper towered over Lars, every squire inch of her body covered in burning gasoline; from her eyes to her feet. It didn’t seem to bother her in the slightest. Over nine hundred degrees Celsius was well within Jasper’s comfort zone.

 

Awkwardly, Jasper looked down at her crotch; ignoring Lars, who cowered like a lost child. A length of tentacle erupted forward, longer and thicker than the strap-on had been. Jasper’s flaming frame shook, casting terrible shadows all over the garage. “You dirty dog! You made my stem come out! Come to Jasper, Lars!”

 

In two strides, she was upon the boy. The toolbox fell to to the cement floor as her flaming hands burned his pink skin to a crisp. Jasper grinned, her teeth shining through the burning fire that covered her. With a single sweep, she tore off Lars’s shirt and then his pants; leaving him totally exposed and vulnerable.

 

There was nothing left for Lars to fight with. “MOMMY! MOMMY!” he wailed, as though his real, loving and probably dead mother could save him now and make this monster go back under the bed.

 

Jasper’s burning tentacle dick positioned itself in line with the boy’s entrance. The burning dick rape would not kill Lars, and Jasper would be tempted to try this more often if she liked it.

 

“Drop him.” said a feminine voice.

 

Jasper turned to her right, caught with her pants literally down.

 

The short figure would have hardly reached Lars’s waist, but she had enough strength to use the cut down artillery piece like a shotgun. With a pull of her finger, the twelve pound gun fired a twelve kilometre per second shell right into Jasper’s sternum.

 

Jasper screamed as the heavy shell lifted her off her feet and crashing through the ceiling of the garage. When she was about a hundred feet into the air, the time delay fuse in the shell detonated and blasted Jasper apart; dissipating her form but not shattering her gem.

 

Lars sat naked on the ground, giant hand prints branded into his flesh like permanent marks of shame; a reminder of how close he’d been to being someone’s comfort boy for life. He trembled like a leaf, afraid of everything and everyone. Except for this person.

 

“It’s me,” said the tiny peach coloured gem, “It’s Padparadscha, human-Lars.” The gem looked at him through her one eye, her bangs pinned back and her face screwed with concentration as she battled to keep herself in the same timeline as everyone else.

 

“P-pads?” Lars asked, like a child returning from being lost in a dark wood. “Pads? Please, be real, Pads. Please be real.” he began to crawl towards her like a worm unworthy of love.

 

The short gem adjusted the trench coat which had replaced her princess like dress. Her gem glowed as she fit a four hundred pound artillery piece into it should she need it for later. She glided towards Lars, her face suddenly relaxing. She paused then spoke after fourteen seconds. “Oh, I have seen a vision that Lars is wounded and needs love.”

 

Lars held her tiny frame, hugging it close; as though she would vanish like everyone else.

 

The defective seer continued to narrate her late visions to him. “I see you crying, human-Lars. I do not judge you. My diamond once did the same to me; my friends saved me. I am your friend, friend-Lars.”

 

Lars had nothing to say, he just began to cry; leaving slobbery, snot and hot, salty tears on the collar of the gem’s appearance modifiers.

 

“I am glad to find you, friend-Lars. I have become better as being one with time, and better at using my talent.” She ran a hand through his sewage soaked hair like a mother comforting a child. “I see late, but i see everything. In my visions, I can see the magic, the atomic forces, the very atoms and gluons that make up a person. With enemy-Jasper I could see her weakness and where to hit her without hurting you.”

 

Lars screamed into Padparadscha’s shoulder, just wailing with absolute misery. He was at rock bottom, somewhere that Padparadscha knew well.

 

“I love you, friend-Lars; I love you forever,” she said as he pounded his fists into her chest, trying to hurt himself against her hard-light body. She knew well enough this kind of behaviour was common. She patted his back like a baby. “In my vision, I saw that enemy-Jasper’s strength was enough that it will take her forty-five local minutes and three seconds to reform her body. I will take you somewhere safe, friend-Lars.”

 

She picked up the weeping boy, cradling him bridal style and stooping to pick up the dented toolbox with Pacifica’s head inside. From Padparadscha’s vision, she saw that Pacifica could be saved. She could not see how or when, but she knew it was possible from the deep scan power she’d honed through thousands of years of practice.

 

As the garage burned to the ground, Padparadscha, Pacifica and Lars vanished into the smoke and into an uncertain night.

* * *

 

_The Shores of Norsca, Now_

 

Sadie Miller woke up on a cobblestone beach, filled with pain, half frozen to death and still very much alive. Pulling up, multiple little stones and pebbles stuck to her bloody face. She knew that she would never be beautiful again; from the amount of dried blood on her chest and left arm, the damage must be extensive.

 

The knowledge that she was permanently scarred, felt slightly freeing. She had survived to feel pain and show scars, and she’d always been considered ugly since she was a girl. Against years and years of put-downs based on her appearance, the scars she would gain seemed like a badge of honour and power.

 

A bit alarming was the fact that her left eye was open but could see nothing. That worried her a little bit. Getting up on wobbly legs, Sadie shakily tried to pull away the stones that dug into her flesh.

 

She winced and nearly bit through her tongue as a sharp pebble released from its rooting in her cheekbones. She took a deep breath, lungs hurting as if they’d been raped.

 

Through her one good eye, Sadie took in the world that threatened her. Over the endless horizon, dark clouds broiled. Mountains stabbed the sky in the distance and vast sub-arctic forests stretched for longer than the human mind could see.

 

On the edge of the vast taigas, nothing but rock and cobble met her gaze. She was truly alone in this untamed landscape, or was she?

 

Sadie turned her head, wobbling like a newborn foal. Unsteady, she braced herself against a bit of driftwood; which when she looked at it, was actually part of an old wooden ship. She took time to admire the fine craftsmanship of the vessel; apparent even through the ravages of the elements and time.

 

Fine oak hosted dozens upon dozens of rusted arrows and broken grapple hooks. Claw marks ran down the piece of hull and some sort of religious icon of a golden warrior was despoiled with tooth, claw, dung and blood.

 

Noise took over in Sadie’s ears from the sound of the pounding waves and the silence of the primordial forests.

 

She would not have believed it once upon a time, but the army of bloodthirsty viking warriors marching along the shoreline was not a hallucination. Tall, powerfully built warriors marched with old surplus Soviet machine guns and swords decorated with the totems of demon gods. Shield maidens with more scars than skin moved in formations more disciplined than any Spartan hoplites of old. Frost trolls bearing heavy clubs stomped, driven on by the whips of beast handlers and the threat of spear, pike and chainsaws. Overhead in the skies, frost wyrms scanned the land and sea for their next meal.

 

A thunderous trumpeting send a shiver of rabbit terror through Sadie’s heart as a mutated woolly mammoth hauled a pod of surface to air missiles on its back; blood and foam dripping from its mouth. A whole herd of the monsters followed their matriarch, carrying on their backs shrines that rippled with arcane magic or hauling modern, state of the art artillery and anti-aircraft guns.

 

Sadie was busy gawking at a pack of hungry werewolves, led by a man with the fangs and eyes of a wolf, when she saw the thing she feared most; men.

 

North-men, hungry for violence and eager to rape were surrounding Sadie, with their axes, swords and guns bared. They spoke in a rough, violent language as they stared her down. Cold in her body and soul, Sadie slowly looked around for anything that she could use as a weapon

 

**BANG!**

 

The sound of a shotgun blast scattered the Norscan warriors like scavengers and made Sadie fall backwards on her nude ass. The girl watched with numb fascination at the figure walking towards her.

 

A man of the future, clad in high tech power armour and equipped with enough guns and ammo to wipe out a small nation by himself. The huge, futuristic warrior broke open his double barrelled shotgun and threw the spent shells on the beach. He stood over her, close enough for her to see the arcane runes and strange symbols that adorned his cybernetic armour.

 

The warrior looked at Sadie through a mirrored face-plate; making him more than a demon and less than a person. His shotgun levelled at her head and she shut her good eye.

 

“Doom-guy!” a voice shouted, one that Sadie knew all too well. Animal bellowing and the sound of hooves caused the cyborg warrior to avoid taking his shot—for now.

 

The Donut girl looked in dead eyed surprise as Pearl of the Crystal Gems approached. Mite infested, worn pelts flapped around Pearl’s thin frame. Under the Crystal gem, a giant elk with antlers eight feet across carried her; her legs wrapped around the beast’s flanks without the help of saddle or stirrup.

 

Pearl’s elk mount snorted snot and spit; tiny worms wriggling out of the creature’s nose. The elk stared down Sadie with red, rabid eyes; foam leaking from its lips. Only Pearl’s inhuman strength, holding the thing by the crude reins held it from ripping her to shreds.

 

The veteran of the Rose Quartz Rebellion and survivor of the Magic Wars looked down at Sadie with familiarity but no warmth or compassion. Mirroring her steed, she adjusted a rusted iron helmet with five point buck antlers as decoration. She stared down her long nose at the weak, naked, frightened, cold girl. She looked at her apparent subordinate, who turned his mirrored visor to his nominal master.

 

Out of the sky, an albino raven cawed and landed; transforming into a twisted, hunched old wizard with pure white eyes. “All glory to you, War-Master Pearl; Diamond Killer and Avenger of the Crystal gems.”

 

Pearl regarded the wizard with barely controlled contempt. A shudder in the Doom-guys’ tank like frame indicated that he’d like nothing better than to turn his guns and fists against the withered old magician.

 

“My lady, the stars have spoken. The eye of terror will appear in the Kraken Sea the night after tomorrow.” The ancient, wrinkled and weather beaten wizard gestured his staff at Sadie, “My Lord Pearl, I humbly request you spare this girl. She has steel in her soul; rusted perhaps but still serviceable. If you truly desire to bring the mundane world to its knees, you will need warriors you can _trust._ ”

 

Pearl looked at the wizard, her mouth shaking with rage and hunger beneath her. She scanned the Doom-guy; the futuristic cyborg warrior responded by putting two pounds of pressure on his gun’s three pound trigger.

 

The tall, pale gem made her decision. She threw a beaten but still sharp iron sword at Sadie, which stuck into the ground beneath her legs. Sadie looked at Pearl with confusion, unable to speak from her trauma.

 

“Our long-ships are moored at Jotunheim bay,” she pointed in the direction which her frostbitten army marched. “If you reach our camp before nightfall, go to the Shield-Matron Jora Baersonling to see if you can serve me. The truly nasty predators come out at night; if you haven’t reached our camp by then, you deserve to die.”

 

The girl was not worth one more second of Pearl’s time. “YA!” the gem shrieked, kicking the flanks of her mount and twisting the rawhide reins. Pearl and her rabid elk mount took off to hold her army to the discipline of unvarnished violence. The wizard gave her a wry grin and took to the skies as a pure white bird. The Doom-guy uncocked the hammers of his shotgun and stormed off to beat some rogue werewolves into submission.

 

Sadie was left alone and nude on that boreale shore. She took the sword and with a single eye to the weak, ineffectual sun, marched into an uncertain future.


End file.
